3-16-11 Wednesday -- 3-17-11 Thursday

Wednesday: Our trainer wasn’t in today so it was an all day free for all.  The class socialized, got their notes in order or whatever.  At one point, we were told we could go to lunch at 11am and be back by 2.  We had a 3 hour lunch.  A group of us went to Razzoo’s for lunch.  It’s a Cajun/New Orleans kinda restaurant.  I ordered:

image It was yummy.

I’ve been reluctant/nervous to get on the phones.  By Wednesday I wanted to give it a shot.

Thursday came and I plugged into a seasoned co-worker’s phone to listen.  I “drove” the computer systems, while Michelle talked to the customer.  I enjoyed it.  After lunch I wanted to go full into it but discovered some of my systems weren’t working with my sign-on.  Ugh.  I told my trainer; tomorrow he plans to check everyone’s systems and let us team up to take calls for ourselves.  Next week we have coaching queue, which is when we’re fully on our own but helpers will be waling around to help us out.

I talk a lot about customer service and here’s something from Consumer Reports:

CR

I’ll have to take a day off from work just to bitch…

3-15-11 Tuesday (Cubed)

Tuesday: Today is the day we’re to relocate to a different training room close to our cubicles.  Looking at the photo below (from Google Earth), the training room was at the red arrow.  As a reminder, you can see how huge this place is based on the size of the cars in the lot.  Anyway… we’re moving to the green arrow from the red arrow.  I decided I’d park at the green arrow and walk to the red one so that at the end of the day, after we moved, I’d be quick to get to my car.  I got soooo lost this morning.  Eventually I went down to the first floor where the cafeteria is so that I could get my location figured out.  I found the cafeteria and used that to get to the green arrow.  Oy.  Naturally, after the move I’ll park at the green arrow area all the time.

Parking Lot

We arrived at the new classroom.  We were all quick to figure out our cubicles.  We were split into teams.  My opposing team supervisor put her employees names on assigned desks, ours did not (he wasn’t in till noon).  We were told to pick desks in a specific area.  No cubicles.  I was bummed.  It wasn’t very private feeling.  It didn’t feel like an office to me.  Most of my team felt the same way.  I promised myself to just deal with it and find the good in it.  The good?  A window very close by.  Teammates/classmates that I like were beside and behind me.  No cubicle walls to make us have to stand up to see one another. 

A little later, once my supervisor was in, one of my teammates saw a large cubicle area empty and asked if we could move.  He agreed, I was thrilled.  I got a killer cubicle with 3 file cabinets that have 3 drawers in each.  That’s 9 drawers in case you’re having problems with math.  I have 3 open shelves and 1 with a door on it.  The cubicles all have the same amount of desk space but are lacking some shelves or cabinets.

PSA

There’s a new option on the left sidebar titled “Follow by Email”.  Thanks to Blogger’s marvelous technological advances, you can submit your email address and have new blog posts delivered to your email box.  You will only receive emails for new posts, not spam nor emails saying nothing is new.  This is handy for those of you who do not have a “blog reader” and have to check the blog periodically for a new post. 

3-14-11 Monday (The Inconvenient Freeze)

imageMohawk never responded.  Mohawk carpet and flooring sucks as far as I’m concerned.  I’m thinking that perhaps when I received extra piss-poor customer service I should make sure that people will find my blog and comments when they Google.  This can usually be achieved by making sure that all the keywords someone might use to research Mohawk can be found within the entry.  For instance:

Mohawk flooring carpeting floors oaktown wood floors reviews care hardwood customer service poor sucks terrible problems

I should do that more often.

The good news is that Monday, Michelle, salesperson at Adams Homes extraordinaire emailed me:

“I was able to get a sample of the Oak Town Cherry hardwoods for you!  It's the 5", but it's the same color as the 3".  I've set it aside in my office, so whenever you are in the area stop on by to pick it up!”

The cool thing is we didn’t have to ask.  She remembered from a conversation several weeks back and I guess acted on it!  Now that’s customer service!

imageMeanwhile back at the office… we’re pretty much done with training but have this entire week left “in the classroom”.  Today we took our final assessment, 85% was passing, 35 questions, I got an 89.  Some people had to take the test again which is no big deal.  I kind of had to take it twice cause I was on question #30 and my computer froze up.  I was pissed.  I had to reboot and re-do the test.  At least it didn’t count as an attempt.  So, we pretty much did nothing except for a 45 minute test.  We did little oral quizzes here and there.

imageIt was announced that we’re relocating our class to a room closer to where our cubicles will be.  Right now we are on the complete opposite end of the complex.  We’ll also have the opportunity to take some real calls and then return to the classroom to discuss.  Next week is our final week of “training” except we’ll be 100% live on the phone without a classroom.  The company will have many extra staff (trainers, well seasoned bankers, supervisors, etc) constantly walking around to help us.  The following week we’re no longer in training and our schedules change to the 12:30 – 9:00pm shift.

During our abundance of down time today, some classmates worked on flash cards so that tomorrow we can play some games.  Others worked on a proposal to NOT have to work every Saturday which most of the class supports that idea.  They’re requesting an alternating Saturdays schedule.  Our trainer told them how to best put together the proposal. 

imageTomorrow we’ll probably be assigned our cubicles.  I’m resisting bringing personal items right now but I really want to walk in with a box of stuff like tissues, Advil stash, napkins, pictures, etc.  As my friend, Deanna’s blog once stated, I have to remember not to bring in gobs of crap.  Here’s the article.  Her post, from and HR professional’s point of view, was about how she had to help a terminated employee pack up to leave the company.  The woman had so much stuff, they were short on boxes and it took 2 hours yet she only worked there for 3 months.  The rule of thumb is that it should all fit in one banker’s box.

3-13-11 Sunday (Happy Trails)

I really, really have to stop eating out especially when I’m so weak about resisting yummy things.  Jim signed us up for some Mimi’s CafĂ© club thing online that gave us a free breakfast… so off we went.  We haven’t went there in a long time and I’m not sure why that’s the case since we think they have some unique dishes there.  Their breakfast menu of complex flavors was the absolute extreme opposite to Friendly’s plain Jane menu.  It was hard to decide.  I finally settled on the cinnamon roll French toast that I had been wanting at Friendly’s.  Damn this was good.  It came with eggs, breakfast meat, and orange juice.  I get eggs over easy so I ordered a side of toast to “dunk” into the egg just the way I love ‘em.  I chose bacon which was very generous.  4 thick and long slices that were high quality.  I ordered iced tea and never got the orange juice so I assumed they substituted which was fine.

The service was excellent but I have complaints.  What else is new, right?  When the meals came we reminded the server we were expecting white toast.  She came back with toast that wasn’t cut nor buttered.  They included the butter.  I thought that was odd and annoying but OK.  Not being cut was even more annoying.  Our server brought out more white toast.  The runner and server made for a double order I guess.  The bread she brought out was a little different, was cut, not buttered and didn’t seem toasted in any way shape or form.  It was never eaten since it was delivered in error anyway. 

The bill came and I saw that I was charged for the iced tea.  I asked the server if my meal was to come with OJ since I never got it and I was charged for the tea.  I asked her to remove the tea.  She said the OJ was a small glass and she couldn’t do that.  She said she could put the OJ into a to go cup or skip it.  I was annoyed but didn’t get bitchy.  Now we all know that iced tea is probably a quarter of the price of OJ.  Probably even less than that.  I asked for the to go cup and intentionally left it on the table.  There.  Now you wasted a cup, straw and lid which probably still cost more than the OJ.

We went to BJs and Walmart for grocery shopping.  The weather today was so freakin’ gorgeous that we came home, changed into shorts, grabbed the dog and went to our future property.  We wanted to check how it did (drainage ditch and creek) with all the rain we had lately.  Checked out fine.  We then went to Reedy Creek and walked one of the trails.  I think Dasher enjoyed all the sights sounds smells.  He likes to pee just enough to mark every damn tree.

image

Here’s some photos from today:

2011-03-13 001Above: Dasher laying outside the back door soaking up some sun!

2011-03-13 002Above: Spotted at Walmart.  Did they just find these from last year OR are they super early for this year?  I’m scared.

2011-03-13 003Above: A little pond with cat tails in the new neighborhood.

2011-03-13 004Above: Dasher inspects the new property.

2011-03-13 005Above: The creek behind our to-be-built house.

2011-03-13 009Above: Jim at Reedy Creek park.

2011-03-13 010Above: One of the trails at Reedy Creek.